Eight years ago, Venezuelan Stefany Hernández won BMX Racing bronze at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. It was the year following her victory at the UCI BMX Racing World Championships. At the time, she was a trainee athlete with the UCI World Cycling Centre (WCC) in Aigle, Switzerland.
“I loved it here, I was always so happy during my years at the centre,” says the former UCI World Champion, who has returned this month to participate in a BMX Racing coaching course.
She is one of several former and current UCI WCC athletes – including Paris 2024 BMX Racing Olympic bronze medalist and 2024 UCI World Championships silver medalist Zoé Claessens (SUI) – on the coaching course. Their participation is in line with the UCI’s vision to encourage athletes to consider their future professional reconversion post-competition.
“I realise now that you can keep close to the sport after retirement. I can combine my knowledge as an athlete with knowledge as a coach and start to try to develop new champions in my country and around the world,” says Stefany Hernández.
Coming back from the dark
It is a renewal with the sport that was the love of her life for many years, but from which she cut herself off completely in 2021.
A combination of injuries and the Covid-19 pandemic dashed her chances of qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Then a panic attack during training for a UCI BMX Racing World Cup in Bogotà, Colombia, put a sudden end to her competitive career.
“I had never been afraid in BMX but that day I was scared. I didn’t want to do it. I went back to my hotel, changed my flight and flew home. I had retired from the sport.”
Her retirement was not a weighed decision. It had not been planned, and it was extremely difficult.
“For three years I did no sport. I didn’t watch it either. Nothing. It’s like when you break up with someone in a relationship, and you want zero contact. Those three years were dark. I hit rock bottom. There was a mess down there and I started to clean everything up. I needed help to do it, I had therapy, and I healed myself. And I’m proud of myself because when you’re in a dark moment, the last thing you think is the light will come.
“I have absolutely no regrets. What I experienced made me so rich in experience and knowledge.”
The Stefany with her trademark big smile is back and raring to go: “When I was 25, UCI World Champion and Olympic bronze medallist, I felt like I was the Queen of the World. Now I am 33 years old, and I feel like the world is mine.”
Rebuilding BMX Racing in Venezuela
As recently as early 2024, she had not completely ruled out a return to competition, but the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where she worked as an Athlete Volunteer (a beautiful experience”), enabled her to make a final decision: “I went to watch the BMX Racing, and when I saw the racing and the stress, I thought ‘no, I’m good.’ It helped me be at peace with my decision. I have closed the chapter of high-level racing and now I’m ready to seize opportunities that come my way.”
As if on cue, she immediately received a proposal to participate in the UCI WCC coaching course.
“It’s pretty interesting because there is quite a lot I know instinctively, and now I’m learning the concept, for example how to create a strategic training plan. When I was training at the UCI WCC, I had a great coach and role model, Thomas Allier. He was two-time UCI World Champion and if he told me to jump of a mountain, I would jump of a mountain. I didn’t think about the planning behind the training programme. It’s exciting to see things from the other side. And it’s challenging because it’s also scientific.”
Stefany Hernández will begin coaching a local young athlete next year, and also sees a chance to reignite the passion for BMX Racing in her country.
“In the 1990s, it was huge in Venezuela, then the political and economic situation was bad, investment in the sport stopped and it more-or-less died.”
It’s a situation that is beginning to change. A pump track is currently being built in Caracas, and Stefany has been contacted to oversee the construction of a high-level BMX Racing track.
“I hope in 2025 we will inaugurate a BMX track for high level athletes in Venezuela. So I’m pretty excited. In three or four years I’d like to see myself organising a UCI BMX Racing World Cup in Venezuela.”
We have not heard the end of Stefany Hernández and BMX Racing in Venezuela.